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Topic: Did Professor Steve Morris Get His Alcoholic Elephant Theory Wrong?  (Read 9486 times)

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Offline Mitch

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Did Professor Steve Morris Get His Alcoholic Elephant Theory Wrong?
« on: November 12, 2006, 06:03:27 AM »
Steve Morris has an interesting paper out in the  Journal of Physiological and Biochemical Zoology arguing that elephants can not get drunk in the wild from eating rotting fruit from the Marula tree.
Quote
The suggestion that the African elephant (Loxodonta africana) becomes intoxicated from eating the fruit of the marula tree (Sclerocarya birrea) is an attractive, established, and persistent tale...Such tales, it seems, may result from "humanizing" elephant behavior.
He proves this with various models, and concludes an elephant would have to eat 4x their usual diet to become intoxicated.

Here is a link to a nice video from youtube apparently disproving his paper.

The image is of an elephant so drunk from Marula fruit that it walks into a tree. Click the picture above to see the whole video. Although, I could fully believe an aggressive nature cinematographer liquored up a bunch of animals for this video, I just kind of doubt it.

Note1: Link to paper: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/PBZ/journal/issues/v79n2/050055/050055.html

Mitch
« Last Edit: November 20, 2009, 12:41:33 AM by Mitch »
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Offline Dan

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Re: Did Professor Steve Morris Get It Wrong? Do Elephants Get Drunk Off Their ...?
« Reply #1 on: November 12, 2006, 09:32:40 AM »
haha good vid. Link to the paper doesn't work for me. "Error - DOI Naming Authority [1522-2152] Not Found"
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Offline Alberto_Kravina

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Re: Did Professor Steve Morris Get It Wrong? Do Elephants Get Drunk Off Their ..
« Reply #2 on: November 12, 2006, 01:53:42 PM »
lol really funny video :D (I can't open the paper, too :P ....it would be interesting to know how much alcohol is contained in one of this fruit).
I knew that horses can get drunk from eating certain fruits, however, I don't know if it is possile for an elephant to get drunk (and if Steve Morris's theory is right (that Elephants can't get drunk)..poor Elephants, they don't know what they miss ;D.
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Offline Mitch

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Re: Did Professor Steve Morris Get It Wrong? Do Elephants Get Drunk Off Their ...?
« Reply #3 on: November 12, 2006, 02:13:44 PM »
link fixed
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Offline Dan

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Re: Did Professor Steve Morris Get It Wrong?
« Reply #4 on: November 12, 2006, 04:14:14 PM »
My dad's cat got drunk once. A glass of red wine fell off the work surface, I came into the kitchen to see him licking it up. Then he (very slowly) attempted to exit through the cat flap, missed it completely and walked into the door, fell over and went to sleep.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to that journal.
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Offline eugenedakin

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Re: Did Professor Steve Morris Get His Alcoholic Elephant Theory Wrong?
« Reply #5 on: December 31, 2006, 11:49:58 AM »
Hi there,

I just clicked on the elephant link, and it is no longer available.

Just for your info... ;)

Eugene
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Offline Mitch

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Re: Did Professor Steve Morris Get His Alcoholic Elephant Theory Wrong?
« Reply #6 on: December 31, 2006, 12:58:03 PM »
fixed with new link to youtube.
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